


Fuck You, strong letter to follow

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Canon Era, M/M, Post canon, Rated for the swear in the title, Religious Discussion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-06
Updated: 2014-03-06
Packaged: 2019-09-28 13:34:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17183963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: David writes a telegram.





	Fuck You, strong letter to follow

**Author's Note:**

> Based on that one tumblr image of anon hate from the 1800s.

“I’ve already replied,” David said, without looking up from his work desk as Jack came in.

“I heard,” Jack said. That was an understatement. 

David jotted down a few more words in his notebook, so Jack took sat down on the top of the desk. That commanded David’s attention, at least. It would’ve been nice if he could’ve at least looked surprised to find Jack right in front of him like that, but he was used to it by now. 

“You’re sitting on top of the letter.” 

“Yours or Oscar’s?” 

“Both. Mine isn’t a letter yet, but you’re sitting on both, essentially. Move a little.” 

“Make me,” Jack answered, because there was no fun in making things too easy for David. Besides, getting David to make him do things was practically what he lived for at this point. 

“I’ll have you know I’m incensed right now and,” David punctuated his words by making a sort of dive at Jack. “Now… isn’t… a… good… wait, got them!” 

 

David pushed Jack’s arms off his shoulders. “Now you have to read them,” he said, handing the hard-won envelopes back to Jack expectantly.

“Down at the Western Union office. Mitch, the front desk guy, said you used some strong language there, Mouth.” 

“Why would he bother to tell you that?” 

“Hey, guess what, people associate you with me now. Or vice versa. Ain’t many people from New York ‘round these parts, and we’ve stuck together pretty well. Everything you do comes back to me.” 

David looked about ready to smile at that. He bit his lip, and looked down at the table. That’s why Jack kissed him. He hadn’t been planning on it. Hell, Dave didn’t even deserve it, since apparently he was pleased to have every minor scandal he caused make its way back to Jack. 

“Read the letter,” he said again. “And take it seriously. I’m angry and disappointed with humanity right now, and you need to stop trying to distract me from that.” 

Jack did decide to read the letters then, taking out the one written in Oscar Delancey’s jagged scrawl first. He’d never seen the guy’s handwriting before, but it looked like him, all sharp and stupid. Not that Jack’s own handwriting made him look like a genius, or anything other than a former street kid without any real education, but at least his wasn’t as ugly as that. 

Mean as Oscar’s handwriting was, it took Jack a minute for Jack to notice that the stuff he was saying was actually pretty nice. Jack let out a low whistle.

“So Oscar found God. Who’d’ve thought.”

“Just the fear of him more likely. Or else he’s gotten greedy for heaven.” 

“He wrote to apologize.” 

“So? He’s just parroting what some priest told him to say. There isn’t a thought in that letter that comes from his own mind. I’d be surprised if he even wrote it. The handwriting is too nice and —“

“The handwriting is shit.”

“It forms letters! He’s practically a baboon. I refuse to believe that Oscar Delancey is or ever will be smart enough to write his own name, without help from someone.”

Jack shrugged. He knew at least a handful of decent folks who couldn’t write their own name. Dutchy, for one, had needed to be taught how to spell his last name at the age of nineteen, and Jack wasn’t in touch with him to know whether or not he still thought Maarschalkerwerd was spelled A-S-S-F-A-R-T-S. David wasn’t talking about Dutchy, though. He never was when he said things like that. 

“Oscar’s a jerk,” Jack said, with a noncommittal shrug. 

“Exactly. And I’m going to tell him so. I’ve finished the outline of my response. Mostly. I just have to flesh it out.”

“Wouldn’t wanna leave out any of the reasons why he’s the scum of the Earth.” 

David nodded, but he was already becoming distracted. He took his outline back from Jack, unfolding it so that he could read it again. He jotted down another note or two, which couldn’t have been easy, with Jack taking up all of his desk space. David’s outline alone was two pages long, and arranged with apparent care. It seemed to have taken him a while, too. Jack could usually tell how long David had been writing, and how invested he was on whatever he was working on, by how chewed up the ends of his pencils were. 

Jack frowned as a thought occurred to him.

“You think you really oughta discourage him?” He asked. 

“Hmm?” 

“Well, if Oscar’s gonna stop beating up on people who don’t deserve it because he doesn’t thinks that’s the right thing to do any more, do you think maybe you oughta just let him go on feelin’ like that?” 

“Are you playing devil’s advocate?” David accused. “I hate that.” 

“Nah, I’m serious. What if Oscar was all ready to start doing good, and your letter sends him off on a murderous rampage or something?” 

“People have free will. If Oscar goes on a murderous rampage, which I wouldn’t put below him, then it’s his own fault.” 

Jack sighed, without quite knowing why. 

“I’ll add some fire and brimstone to the letter if it’ll make you feel better. Like… like in a Christmas Carol.”

“Funny to hear you talk about —“ 

“We had to read it for school,” David interrupted. “Every single year. It wasn’t that bad. Anyway, there’s the part where Marley’s ghost is telling Scrooge about how he’s been forging this long chain to carry around when he dies and becomes a ghost himself, and that if he doesn’t change his ways then his chain is going to be even heavier…” 

“And then he does at the end,” said Jack, who had seen that play enough times at Medda’s to know the story at least as well as David did. 

“Right. But it’s not like the chains he’s already made are just going to disappear in a puff of smoke. They just aren’t going to get any bigger. Scrooge still has to pay in the afterlife, for all the things he did before the ghosts came to teach him a lesson. So Oscar believes in heaven and hell now. I’ll just tell him that he’s going to hell where he belongs, but he’s going to go to a more hellish hell if he’s not extremely careful from now on.” 

“Do you even believe in hell?” Jack asked.

“No, but I don’t mind imagining Oscar there. Dante had different levels of it in Inferno, so I think I’ll use a similar concept to explain things to Oscar.” 

“What level do the people who piss you off live in?” 

“Depends on what they do,” David said, but his eyes were already back to his outline. “Give me another piece of paper?” 

Jack did. He wasn’t feeling as playful as he had been when he first came in. He didn’t feel all that great at all, in fact. 

“Can’t help but think you’re missing the point somewheres,” Jack said.

“I have lots of textual evidence,” answered David, as if that settled the matter. It sort of did, because Jack was beginning to find he was tired of talking about it. He got down off the desk, and David immediately leaned into the place he had vacated, writing away at a furious pace. Jack guessed he ought to start dinner or something. David usually preferred to do it himself, but he was busy tonight. 

The only problem was that peeling potatoes and chopping carrots wasn’t as distracting a task as Jack needed. It left his mind damn well free to wander, and so it did, tracing back the bad things he’d done in his life, and wondering if David really thought bad deeds were irredeemable, and would follow you no matter what you did after, and wondering why David bothered much with him, if that was the case.


End file.
